Santander Expands Resources for Deaf Customers With Launch of BSL Website Translation Service

Deaf customers can now browse Santander.co.uk in British Sign Language (BSL), as Santander rolls out Signly across its website.

The rollout of the BSL technology that translates the bank’s website aims to provide more Deaf customers with access to key financial information.

Customers can go to the Deaf or hearing loss accessibility page on the Santander website to turn Signly on. Once on, a qualified translator is displayed in the corner of the screen to translate the selected text into BSL for the customer.

Translations are currently available on the most visited pages of the Santander website. The number of translated pages will increase as customers can make requests for additional pages of the website to be translated by Signly, which will be produced within seven days.

There are around 87,000 Deaf people in the UK who use BSL as their preferred language.

Santander Head of Vulnerable Customer Strategy, Dorothy Liviabella, said: “Our addition of Signly will improve access to critical financial information for more people. Tens of thousands of Deaf people use BSL as their primary language and through Signly they can now easily access the exact same information as other customers.”

Santander’s Head of User Experience & Design, Tom Paget, said: “Everyone should be able to access digital services without barriers. Signly is the perfect partner to help us become a more inclusive and accessible bank by providing British Sign Language translations for our website.”

Breda Leyne of ESquared, the social enterprise behind SigningBanks.UK, says: “We developed SigningBanks.UK in the belief that everyone, regardless of their hearing ability, deserves seamless access to financial resources and services. We have been working with Santander and other financial services firms for the past couple of years to promote the needs of Deaf customers and to highlight outstanding gaps in service provision. We are delighted to see Santander achieve a significant step in making their services more accessible to BSL users, using the excellent Signly service.”

The rollout of Signly builds on existing services for Deaf customers. Santander offers SignVideo which connects customers to a professional interpreter who will interpret on their behalf to an advisor. SignVideo can be used from home, or customers can bring their device into branch to speak to colleagues face to face through a BSL interpreter.

Should customers wish, they can bring their own interpreter to their local branch or Santander can book an interpreter for a customer free of charge. The bank also supports Relay UK, which allows customers to use the Relay UK app or textphone to speak to colleagues by converting customers’ speech into text and vice versa.